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The 10 Most Wanted initiative has now ended and the website is being archived for posterity.
The project partners are grateful to Nesta for funding 10 Most Wanted and thank all those who contributed their knowledge and opinions.
Do keep in touch by visiting the website of the Museum of Design in Plastics at http://www.modip.ac.uk.

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Salad servers AIBDC : 003361
This object is part of a trial to see if giving specific guidance on research methods makes the game a more successful means of obtaining information about the objects featured.
There's very little we do know about these stylish salad servers. We would be pleased to hear anything at all about them. I would start by looking at books about collecting plastics. Does that mean a trip to your local library? Follow the investigation here: http://10most.org.uk/artefact/salad-servers.

In 1908 a new type of plastic made from casein, a protein found in milk, was invented by Victor Schutz, a Latvian chemist. It was made from milk curd, a by-product of the dairy industry. Soon after its invention, the company Syrolit Ltd obtained a licence to produce casein. In 1911, it moved from Enfield, Middlesex, to the former cloth mills at Lightpill. The new site was nearer to the supply of milk curd from Ireland.
Despite refrigeration the company met with serious difficulties in keeping the wet curd in a workable condition. The problem was solved when E.A. Petersen, a German who had worked in the production of casein in Hamburg, introduced a new 'dry' process. This used casein granules instead of starting with milk or curd. The new product was registered in 1913 as 'Erinoid'.
In May 1914 Petersen was appointed Works Manager and took control of production at Lightpill. By October the first Erinoid product appeared and became the main source of casein plastic outside Germany. German imports ceased with the outbreak of war in July 1914. There was a huge demand for Erinoid, especially from British button manufacturers. During 1914 production of Erinoid increased and the workforce at Lightpill grew from 25 to 125 employees.
Erinoid offered manufacturers new and exciting applications. The material was supplied in sheets, rods, tubes and discs. It was non-flammable, odourless and did not conduct electricity. It could be sawn, drilled, glued and turned like wood. Dyed in a wide range of colours, it provided a cheap substitute for many expensive materials such as ivory, amber, horn, tortoiseshell, coral, ebony and bone.
As well as buttons early applications included knitting needles, fountain pens and instrument panels. It provided an ideal substitute for ivory piano keys.
Erinoid Ltd continued to develop new types of plastics. These included cellulose acetate, PVC and polystyrene.
Although the company was taken over in 1957, plastics continued to be made at Lightpill into the early 1980s.
Above taken from a talk given in Stroud in 2009 on the history of Erinoid.

Have you noticed the elegant profile that the handles have? It's not unlike a Mappin and Webb cutlery set my parents were given when they got married in 1938. Clearly someone 'designed' that. Who do you think it was?

Case notes

Salad Servers: Case AIBDC : 003361

This object is part of a trial to see if giving specific guidance on research methods makes the game a more successful means of obtaining information about the objects featured.

There's very little we do know about these stylish salad servers. We would be pleased to hear anything at all about them. I would start by looking at books about collecting plastics. Does that mean a trip to your local library?

Wonderful account of the development of Erinoid

Special Agent Radcliffe has provided a wonderful account of the history of Erinoid including the invention of a new type of plastic made from casein, a protein found in milk, by Victor Schulz in 1908, the adaptaion of using casein granules rather than milk or curd by E.A.Petersen and the resulting registration of the UK product, Erinoid, in 1913, and the history of the firm into the 1980s. To read the full story please go to the Evidence locker.